California-based Gilead Sciences and Yale School of Medicine have announced a research collaboration focused on the discovery of new cancer therapies, according to FierceBiotech.

"The collaboration brings together one of the world's top research universities and a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to addressing unmet medical needs with the goal of finding new treatments for cancer," president of Yale Richard C. Levin said.

Initially, the partnership will span four years and includes an option to renew for up to ten years. Gilead will support the endeavor with $40 million in research support and basic science infrastructure development for the first four years; it may provide up to $100 million over ten years if the pact continues. Gilead has the first option to license resulting inventions from the collaboration.

"Following Gilead's recent acquisitions of cancer development programs, this partnership serves to strengthen our discovery capabilities in the area of oncology," said Norbert W. Bischofberger, Ph.D., Gilead's executive vice president, research and development and chief scientific officer. "Based on the strong track-record of the Yale cancer research team, I am confident this collaboration will lead to important advances in the understanding of the genetic basis of cancer as we collectively seek to develop novel targeted therapies for patients in areas of unmet medical need."